There is a fit & happier person inside everyone

Monthly Archives: September 2014

Trending right now in health and fitness studies is the apparent link between hours of sitting and bad health. The first couple of studies done a few years ago produced such shockingly depressing results that there is a natural desire to continue to test the hypothesis through more and more studies on the subject. This is a good thing. The more scientific studies devoted to such an important topic, the better our understanding and the more likely we all can take action in our daily lives that will make us healthier. All good, right? Yes, but…

The rub is, taking these studies to the public leads to headlines like “Sitting is the New Smoking: Ways a Sedentary Lifestyle is Killing You” and statements like “the effects of long-term sitting are not reversible.” I dislike this approach because it implies the science is settled and, worse, it seems as though we are hopeless to do anything about it. I’m not a pessimist and I detest the sensationalized headlines and the all-is-lost message they portray. Let’s take a deep breath and a good, rational look at the facts.

First, the bad news:

Several recent peer-reviewed studies tested the correlation between number of hours sitting per day and mortality. The results have been consistent: there is an association between number of hours sitting per day and chronic diseases (type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some cancers), conditions that predispose one to these diseases (such as high LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, obesity and poor insulin sensitivity) and early death.

In one study, the risk factors didn’t seem to be less if the individual was active at other times of the day. Suggesting, for example, that sitting at a desk for 8 hours at work was not offset by stopping at the gym on the way home for an hour-long vigorous workout.

The apparent cut-off point is about 4 hours. In other words, sitting for less than 4 hours total per day did not raise risk factors of disease and early death, sitting for a total of 4 hours or more per day did raise risk factors.

Prolonged sitting is detrimental to posture and contributes to muscle imbalances that raise the risks of developing dysfunctional joint movement, acute and chronic pain, and injury.

Click here for a slideshow outlining the conclusions of these studies.

Now, reasons to be optimistic:

These studies suggest an association, not causation. Lots more studies need to be done, particularly long-term studies, before we can conclude sitting more than 4 hours per day causes early death.

The suggestion that the detrimental effects of prolonged sitting are irreversible is based on only one study. None of the studies done thus far have had a long enough trial period to be able to come to such a conclusion. It is far too premature to make such a blanket statement. It can, however, serve as a warning to all of us to take action sooner rather than later and to limit the amount of time spent seated as much as possible.

The average American work week (46 hours) plus the average American commute time (26 minutes, one way) plus 8 hours of sleep per night, still leaves about 60 hours remaining in the average American’s week to not be sitting at a desk or in a car. There are opportunities, both during and after the workday, available to all of us to stand up and move – lots of them.

At Work

If your workplace has a wellness program or healthy lifestyle incentives, check with your Human Resources department to see if it’s possible to have the company update your workstation. Phone headsets, podium-style desk space or a raised workspace could free you up to stand for certain tasks. Even if the company won’t provide you with new workspace furniture, you may be able to make a few, no-cost adjustments to your workspace to allow for more work while standing.

Give yourself a daily limit of seated screen time to divvy up among your home computer, TV and tablet and stick to it.

Perform strength and flexibility workouts at home while watching TV (and then you don’t have to count that time against your daily limit from above). See my strength and flexibility training workout for desk jockeys.

Cook more meals from scratch – all done standing. Not to mention bending, lifting and carrying.

Perform tasks like folding laundry, paying bills, and talking/texting on the phone while standing.

When possible, run errands on foot or by bike. If you need a car, always park in spaces furthest away from your destination and use a hand-held basket over a shopping cart when possible.

If you’ve hired out housecleaning or yard work, consider reclaiming some or all of those tasks. If that seems too daunting and you have school-aged children, remember being active is good for them too. You could take an hour out of your weekend, divide the chores up and complete them as a family. Paying your children to take on some of these responsibilities is cheaper than paying a professional and teaches them the value of work and how to handle money.

Educate yourself on the latest in these studies. The more informed you are, the better choices you’ll make about your lifestyle. Be sure to avoid the pitfalls of sensationalized headlines, though. See my post on how to intelligently read reports on fitness and health studies.

Yes, these studies are sobering. But all is not lost. There are lots of ways we all can move more and sit less. It takes commitment, will and some creativity to stay on track. And, of course, you need a good reason to make the necessary changes. If good health and quality of life aren’t enough to motivate you, remember that you are responsible for modeling fit behavior for your children. If that isn’t motivation enough, I’m not sure what is.

There’s no easy answer. And that’s because it really depends. It matters which one you get, what you need it to do for you, what things motivate you to exercise and, most importantly, it depends upon what type of exercise you like to do.

What is a Fitness Tracker? A pedometer, worn on the arm or belt, that simply counts how many steps you take in a day would qualify as the simplest form of fitness tracker. Similarly, there are heart rate monitors with accelerometers that measure calories burned according to exertion based on heart rate as well as number of strides taken. With the emergence of smart phones, apps have been developed that can track a myriad of fitness variables including distance, speed and elevation. Since the app resides on the smart phone, with a quick tap users can share their workouts to their social media pages, creating an accountability aspect to their workouts as well as a built-in cheering section of family and friends. Other apps boast their own communities where workouts are posted to a community forum of other app users which adds an element of competition to the elements of accountability and support.

All of these could be considered wearable fitness trackers since, in order for them to measure exercise output, they must be physically worn (as in a pedometer or heart rate monitor) or carried by hand or in a pocket (as in a smart phone with an app running). But the most sophisticated and quickly emerging fitness trackers are known by the term “wearables” in the fitness industry. Most of them look like a bracelet as shown here:

Wearables

Manufacturers of the wearable trackers recommend customers wear them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in order to take full advantage of the parameters the wearables measure. Not only can they measure the same variables app trackers do, but they can also measure quantity and quality of sleep. The information from the wearable is uploaded (often wirelessly) to a companion website (or synced to an app on your phone) so the information can be compiled into a virtual, personalized fitness report. Many allow the user to manually input calorie intake on the site or app so the report can encompass diet along with exercise and sleep fitness.

The case for a tracker: Studies have shown even the simplest pedometer helps to motivate users to move. Particularly those who have started and stopped exercise programs in the past. Logic predicts, and studies also prove, the more variables the device can measure, the more positive feedback and, therefore, motivation it provides. In other words, knowing how many steps you take in a day with a pedometer is great. But, if you wear a heart monitor, you can know that some of those steps were done at a quicker pace or at an incline, therefore indicating a better “quality” of steps, translating to more calories burned. An app can measure the number of steps (via distance) and quality of those steps (via duration time and elevation) and then reward you with a visual map of your workout, scores of “Likes” on your Facebook page and a running total of calories burned for the week. Wearables take the app tracker experience to an entirely new level providing a seemingly limitless number of feedback points each of which can motivate you in different ways.

If the bulk of your exercise (over 85%) is traditional cardiovascular training that can be measured in distance and time (walking, jogging, running, cycling, rowing, hiking, cross-country skiing) and you’re not obsessed with accuracy of calories burned, trackers can be the most valuable piece of fitness equipment you own. If you cycle, row or cross-country ski make sure your tracker can measure that type of movement, as opposed to one that uses a traditional pedometer, or step-motion, that measures walking and running only. Also, if you incorporate hills or mountains in your workouts, make sure your tracker monitors elevation to get the best estimate of calorie burn possible.

It’s important to keep in mind that traditional cardio exercise calorie output can’t be accurately measured unless the exerciser is hooked up to monitors while working out. Any tracker or cardio machine monitor can only give the exerciser an estimate of calories burned, even when you enter variables like age, gender, height and weight and monitor your heart throughout.

Where trackers fall short: This is where trainers and other fitness experts like me start to get a little uncomfortable. If the studies are showing that trackers motivate people to move more than they do now, should we really be raining on their parade? No. But trackers have limitations. For some people, as in the traditional cardio exerciser from above, the limitations are irrelevant and, therefore, trackers are a fantastic fitness tool, perhaps even essential to them being able to maintain a consistent exercise regimen. For others, the limitations of trackers are very relevant making the tracker more likely to de-motivate. How? When fitness equipment is purchased and then not used because it was a poor match for the person, it becomes a constant reminder of failure to adhere to a fitness program – a constant de-motivator. (Think treadmill in the bedroom corner collecting dust and random clothing.)

There is currently no tracker that can give you output credit for strength, flexibility or mind-body training. This is also true for cardio-strength combination or plyometric workouts such as CrossFit, HIIT, Tabata and boot camp classes. The workout and, especially, post-workout calorie burn for these types of intense training workouts far exceeds a traditional steady-state cardio workout but trackers have no way to measure it, let alone estimate it. It’s not the makers of trackers at fault here. Exercise science hasn’t found a way to measure or even estimate calorie output for these types of workouts outside a laboratory yet. If the equipment can’t even detect exercise output, it can’t provide any positive feedback for the user. It can’t be a motivating factor.

If you fall into a category where a fitness tracker is a good fit for you, I highly recommend getting one. Start small (and less expensive) with a heart monitor/accelerometer watch or smart phone app. If you find yourself hooked, a wearable may be just the tool you need to keep you on the right track to a fitter and happier you.

Gisele Bundchen, Brazilian-born supermodel and former Victoria’s Secret star, has signed a multi-year contract with Under Armour, a sport and fitness apparel company. She is part of their “I Will What I Want” campaign. If the title seems vague to you, don’t bother to try to get clarity by looking up the video Under Armour posted on their website to promote Ms Bundchen’s contribution to their campaign.

I’ll spare you the pain of having to view it for yourself by summarizing it here. Just as I’m sure both Bundchen and Under Armour were banking on, when news of the contract hit the public, many took to Twitter to post their thoughts on a supermodel signing a deal in an industry that is normally the domain of athletes and high profile fitness experts. Also predictable, most of the comments are rather negative. The video shows snippets of Bundchen running through a series of workouts. (I confess, I couldn’t stomach the entire video. Of the 3 minutes or so I did watch, she performed a kickboxing segment, planks and push-ups on low-hanging gymnast rings and a yoga-inspired balance pose on one leg.) She’s in a room with slate-colored walls and, as she is performing her workout, actual Twitter comments about her are superimposed in white letters on the walls behind her. In other words, this campaign is all about Bundchen. This isn’t about inspiring girls and women to be strong or to reject the false and impossible body-image messages that are constantly bombarding them. It’s about revamping her image. And, she has a lot to revamp. While the people whom she is answering back to in the video are referred to as “haters”, there are many of us – mothers, daughters, sisters, women in general – who have valid reasons to dislike and reject her messages.

Let’s begin with the industry she began in – modeling in the fashion industry and becoming most famous for modeling lingerie. This industry is the absolute antithesis of the women’s fitness industry. While the fashion industry continues to airbrush and computer-edit waifish girls with surgical “enhancements” for our consumption, the fitness industry is trying to teach girls that it isn’t about how your body looks compared to others or what size you wear. It’s about eating well and exercising for strength, health and well-being. While the fashion industry is still marred by eating disorders and unhealthy habits, the fitness industry challenges us to push ourselves mentally, physically and emotionally to achieve what we didn’t think we could and build our self-esteem and self-worth in the process. If Ms Bundchen wanted to get on board with that message, I may have been willing to listen. She could have come to our team and been an asset. Instead, she’s using this to answer to critics and, once again, try to show girls that they can never be as perfect and wonderful as the beautiful Gisele Bundchen. In case you don’t remember or aren’t aware of other areas of Ms Bundchen’s life that other women (or humans, for that matter) have failed to live up to in her reckoning, here is a sampling:

In Harper’s Bazaar UK she said, “I think there should be a worldwide law, in my opinion, that mothers should breastfeed their babies for six months.”

In Vogue: “I think a lot of people get pregnant and decide they can turn into garbage disposals. I was mindful about what I ate, and I gained only 30 pounds.”

She is known to have had natural births at home for both of her children. She posted a blog on her website that claimed hospital births were “violent” and “like a mass production of babies.”

Following a Super Bowl loss by the New England Patriots, a team quarterbacked by her husband Tom Brady, rather than ignore a bunch of low-life heckling football fans, she chose to respond with a profanity-laced assignment of blame on her husband’s teammates. All caught, of course, on the heckling fans’ cell phones.

Sorry, Under Armour this woman and her campaign with you aren’t inspiring to me and I won’t be exposing my daughters to it. I’ll be sure to avoid your label when purchasing their gym clothes and sports gear. I much prefer the messages of Athleta’s Chi Blog, where they asked ordinary women to enter images of their yoga poses in interesting places in a contest. Or Dick’s Sporting Goods “Why You Run” campaign – these stories are all real and full of people far more worthy of our admiration and inspiration. Nike, long known for their “Just Do It” message have adapted it specifically for women. I get it, Athleta, Dick’s and Nike are already doing the ordinary-women-are-the-stars marketing campaign and you wanted to do something different. So why not female athletes – amateur and professional? Wanted more star power than that? How about famous, beautiful women who are sending healthy messages to girls and women? Off the top of my head: Mindy Kaling is publicly proud of her body in the face of constant public ridicule; Colbie Caillet’s “Try” video is a must-see for all girls; Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass” may be riotously raunchy, but it is about acceptance of the beauty of your body just as it is.

Perhaps if Ms Bundchen would have been willing to strip off her make-up just as Ms Caillet did or revealed an un-edited photo of herself as Jamie Lee Curtis has done, she wouldn’t have so many so-called haters. It was an opportunity for her to show women that she, like all of us, has flaws but we are stronger and better than our flaws. Instead, she has chosen to continue to give us the unrealistic and false picture of perfection, except now with an added in-your-face middle finger to all of us who reject that picture. All I can say is: Under Armour, thanks, but no thanks.

Success in sports like sprinting, football, soccer, tennis, basketball and the like relies on one or more of the following performance skills: power, speed, agility and reactivity. So, this month’s workout will have a mix of power, speed, agility and reactivity drills for the upper and lower body followed by a stretching regimen to promote flexibility in the muscles most taxed by these drills. Other Workouts of the Month follow a traditional circuit strength and flexibility training format. But performance drills by nature incorporate a cardio component, making this workout a fantastic calorie burner as well.

Words of Caution: Performance training is the highest level of strength training there is. This workout is not meant for people who are not regularly participating in a competitive sport or already strength training at an advanced level. Also, plyometrics are not recommended for people who have joint issues, including ankle, knee, hip, spine/neck, shoulder and elbow. If you are unsure if a previous injury precludes you from this type of workout or if you’re considering these exercises for the first time, consult your physician before incorporating this workout into your routine.

Activity-Specific Workout of the Month Defined: A 30 minute strength and stretch training workout tailored to benefit those who engage in a particular recreational sport or activity. The workouts will be challenging and safe for the novice but will also offer progressions for the experienced. If your children participate in these activities, know that strength and flexibility training is not only safe for kids but beneficial as well. The workouts will have minimal equipment requirements so they can be done anywhere. The goal is to properly strengthen and stretch the key muscle groups involved in the activity so the participant can achieve performance improvements and reduce the risk of injury. Click on the exercise to link to examples and step-by-step descriptions provided by www.acefitness.org.

Concept: Each drill is designed to train one or more of the four performance skills. Most drills are specific to the lower body, which would include all four skills and are necessary in all sports. There are also drills for upper body to train power for activities involving racquets (like tennis), swinging (like baseball and golf) and throwing (like pitching and quarterbacking). Therefore you can select from the drills here based on their training targets to best suit your needs. I recommend selecting a total of 4 drills per workout. Following the performance workout is a flexibility workout that targets the largest muscles of the body involved in performance training – quads, hamstrings, glutes, upper and lower back, and chest/shoulder muscles for upper body power training. Perform 1-3 of these workouts per week, allowing at least 48 hours between workouts.

Levels: If these types of exercises are new to you, you’re at Beginner level, even if you workout at high levels in other forms of exercise. If you have some experience with performance-based training exercises – such as CrossFit, HIIT, Tabata or Advanced Boot Camp – you can begin at the Intermediate level, particularly if the Beginner level doesn’t feel challenging enough. The Advanced level should only be done if you already do performance-based training exercises regularly or until you progress through the Beginner and Intermediate levels over time. The amount of training it takes before progressing from one level to the next varies from person to person and is dependent upon a number of variables, including how often and consistently you perform these exercises. Though, it is not recommended that your perform more than 3 per week – always on non-consecutive days. Generally speaking, it is not uncommon for the average amateur athlete to take anywhere from several weeks to several months to progress levels in performance training.

Performance Workout

Select 4 of the following drills at the appropriate level. It may be that you progress through some drills faster than others. It is perfectly okay, and likely, that you will be able to perform some drills at Intermediate level and others at Beginner level, for example.

Lower Body Plyometric Drills: Trains leg power

Select 1 or 2 drills at the appropriate level; for each exercise you select, perform 3 sets of 6 repetitions per set, resting 60-90 seconds between sets

Start with drills at your current level, travelling 5-10 yards per set. Progress to 20-30 yards per set before progressing to next level. Return to 5-10 yards per set after leveling up, progressing up to 20-30 yards per set. In all cases, perform 1-3 sets with 3+ minutes rest between sets.

Arm Speed Drills: Keeping arms close to body and elbows bent at 90 degrees; perform explosive arm drive motions back and forward (as though you are moving arms in a power-walk motion.) Keep torso to minimal movement. These can be performed kneeling or standing. Perform 1-2 sets of 10-15 repetitions per arm, resting 1-2 minutes between sets. (credit: ACE Trainer Guide)

Beginner: High Knee: Drive each knee high as you walk, skip or slow jog forward; arms should also drive as though in a sprint

Intermediate: High March: Drive each knee high (as in beginner phase) but when knee reaches highest point, kick foot out in front of you as you walk, skip or slow jog forward

Advanced: Butt Kick: As you drive knee high in front of you (as in beginner phase), bend knee to have back of foot hit butt, then propel foot forward as you extend knee; aim to have mid-foot make contact with the ground. Be sure not to swing knee behind you. Practice movement standing in place before progressing to walking, skipping or slow jogging.

Flexibility Workout

Perform all of the following stretches as the conclusion of your drills; hold each stretch for 20-30 seconds, perform on right and left side:

Side-Lying Quad Stretch: Stretches hip flexors & quads. This stretch may also be done while standing (runner’s stretch); grasp top of foot with hand to point toes toward ceiling to stretch the shins as well.

My Small Step Philosophy: A fit life is attained by making small, realistic and sustainable changes in food consumption and exercise over time. This allows a person time to create and hone new, fit habits that then become adopted and integrated into her everyday life. The result is a person who is living a fit lifestyle each and every day, making her healthy and strong for a lifetime. I have used this philosophy to create my One Small Step blog series. Each month, I give you one healthy change to work on for that entire month. Sometimes it’s a diet change, sometimes an exercise change and sometimes one of each. The idea is to concentrate only on that one change for a month so that it becomes ingrained into your daily meals or weekly exercise routines, making you able to take on another small change at the beginning of the next month. Just discovering the series now? No worries, the Small Step changes don’t need to be done in any particular order and are independent of one another. You can begin this month, follow along the rest of the year and incorporate what you’ve missed next year.

If you’ve been following my Small Steps toward a fit life program in 2014, you’ve taken control of your daily calorie intake (January’s portion control), practiced planning ahead to minimize high calorie meals and maximize opportunities for exercise (February’s plan ahead), used strategies to manipulate your environment to avoid falling back into unhealthy habits (March’s accentuate the positives and eliminate the negatives), improved the quality of your food choices and quantity of daily activity (April’s substitutions), revisited healthy habits of the past when we were slimmer and healthier (May’s go old school), added strength training and more fresh produce to your bag of tricks (June’s +1) and used the mid-way point, July and August, to reflect upon, revamp and renew your commitment to fitness. Congratulations!

It’s September and, with kids returning to school, it seems time-appropriate to infuse our fitness routines with fresh, cutting-edge exercise and nutrition aids. Let’s embrace technology. Yes, technology can sometimes act as an obstacle to fitness – particularly when we consider how much time we spend sitting on our duffs as we consume it. But technology also can help us reach fitness goals in ways that were never possible before. So, this month, I challenge you to find an electronic-based fitness tool that speaks to you and give it a try.

Caveat: The market for fitness-based electronic aids is booming. This makes it practically impossible for me to do a comprehensive list and review of all the products available. Instead, I’ve given an overview of the types of products currently available followed by a few specific examples in each category.

For the Technically-Challenged

If this month’s small step sounds like a complete nightmare to you, don’t fret. There are lots of simple, inexpensive gadgets out there that do all the work for you and don’t require that you know what a USB, WiFi or app is. Many pedometers ($15-30) and heart monitors ($25-100) can be worn as a watch or armband and track your movements throughout the day. This type of device need not have much more than an on/off button and clock feature. But even the simplest of tracking tools have been proven to help motivate people to start moving and keep moving.

The amount of fitness-based apps is dizzying. The best thing you can do is decide just what it is that you need an app to do for you to meet your fitness goals and then do a little research to find the best one available for your phone. The following is a sampling of free fitness apps available on my Windows-based phone:

Stopwatch Timer: stopwatch, lap timer and countdown

Gym PocketGuide: Encyclopedia of 100+ exercises and stretches available with photos, videos and step-by-step instructions

Runtastic: GPS aided tracking of time, distance, speed, elevation and calories burned for outdoor workouts including biking, walking, hiking and running; also has a feature to manually input indoor workouts such as a cardio machine or strength training workout

Active Fitness: A tracking app with a social network component boasting over 300K users

You can keep track of an amazing amount of fitness variables if you’re willing to wear a tracking device 24/7 and upload the information to its accompanying website. These are pricier than a standard pedometer or heart-rate monitor, costing $100-$200. But they can track not only workouts and daily steps but hours/quality of sleep as well. Some allow the user to also input daily calorie intake so that these trackers can truly give one a big-picture look at her fitness. They aren’t perfect, however. They can be inaccurate and some types of workouts, such as strength training, are difficult, if not impossible, for a wearable device to record. If you’re interested in a tracking device like this, do your homework before purchasing. Here is a report on one of the latest accuracy studies done on the most popular wearable tracking devices.

Perhaps you have a gaming device in your home, such as Playstation, Xbox or Nintendo Wii. If you do, you may not realize that there are grown-up friendly fitness games available for these devices. “Just Dance” is available for Xbox 360 ($20) or Playstation 4 ($40) while “Your Shape Fitness” offers a variety of options for Xbox 360 ($30). Nintendo Wii has a number of workout options at various price points through their Wii Fit packages.

It’s a brave new world out there and it’s ever changing. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that new gadgets and apps are coming out every day that can make a positive impact on our quests to be fit. Really, the most difficult part of this month’s small step is deciding which technology tool will work best for you. Once you’ve acquired it, the device does all the work for you.